Tag: hugh gwon

NEW CHANNEL! – KOREAN APPA

2018/06/07 / Nic / 0 Comments

Hugh’s new channel! Korean Appa!

Hugh has rebranded his YouTube channel (which previously was just a place for TV appearances we had done and random stuff) to a father and baby channel where he will show little videos of him and Yul. It’s called “Korean Appa”.

“Appa” means daddy in Korean and Hugh is emphasising that he is in Korea and will be speaking a lot of Korean in the videos. He wants to record these memories with Yul, but also wants to encourage and motivate Korean men to be more involved with their children. Many Korean men grew up with fathers who were emotionally distant (the old fashioned belief that raising children was only the mother’s job) and while men now want to be more involved with their kids it can be hard if they didn’t have a good role model.

Hugh is a new father but hopes his own journey inspires others too. He will also be showing how we are raising Yul to be bilingual and in two cultures. The reason why he is uploading on this channel and not the MKH channel is because we don’t want to have too much baby spam on there. On this ‘Korean Appa’ channel there can be lots of little videos while on MKH they are a longer and more edited format.

Please subscribe if you are interested in seeing more of Hugh and Yul together and want to know about what it’s like to be a modern father in Korea. We hope that it can be encouraging to other fathers as well. We think carefully about what we put of Yul online and always try to make sure the positives outweigh the negatives. So far documenting our story not only preserves those precious memories in a way photos can’t, but also helps us to constantly be thinking and revaluating about what is important in our own relationship and what we want and need for our family. 20 years ago we wouldn’t have shown our child in this public way, but times have changed a lot and children can very soon make their own social media accounts without parents knowing. By being more public with our videos we hope to educate Yul about social media and how to create a positive identity online.

We already get so many comments from people about how seeing Yul in our photos and videos makes their day or how they are encouraged when they see us as a family together. I hope we can continue to be something positive and encouraging.

The majority of videos will be in Korean but there are English subtitles, just click for the CC or subtitles at the bottom of the video.

SUBSCRIBE TO KOREAN APPA!

SEOUL: OPEN 24 HOURS

2018/01/10 / Nic / 0 Comments

Hugh and our good friend Sara recently were filming for Arirang TV. As it was about showing all the things open during the night in Seoul, it unfortunately meant late night filming in freezing temperatures!

Hugh made a short vlog that shows the different places that are open 24 hours in Seoul.

Check out Sara’s channel here.

Hugh’s new fame?

2017/08/28 / Nic / 8 Comments

I was joking with Hugh about this because he has been collecting all the articles about this. So far there has been about 60 to 70 articles from all around the world. He has meticulously been putting links and titles into a word document and also Google translated the titles. Some of the titles end up being quite funny, so we will make a video about that soon.

Because there are still articles every day and he is still checking for them, I’ve been jokingly warning him about what will happen when they stop. I imagine he will have withdrawal symptoms and told him it would be like that Hollywood trope of how far someone falls from fame.

I enjoy teasing him about his new found fame. But the attention is very motivating and gives him that extra drive to continue to maintain a healthy lifestyle. His confidence has grown a lot and he is starting to think about whether he will study nutrition or something that can be included in his life coaching goals. He has always wanted to help and inspire people and with this project he really managed to achieve that.

But it’s been an amazing experience. We never imagined that it would get this much attention. Western media focused a lot on the IVF aspect while Asian media focused on how he looked afterwards.

That main transformation video is approaching a million views too. Which is a first for us!

It’s about a month since Hugh did his big photo shoot and he is doing well with his lifestyle change. His goal is not to always have 6 pack of course, but to maintain a healthy weight and continue exercising. From now he may focus on building more muscle as well.

We plan to talk about IVF later, after the baby is born. We did vlog while going through IVF, so we’ll have a video about our journey. Make sure you are subscribed to YouTube to see that.

Yellow Dust Ruins Everything

2017/03/27 / Nic / 1 Comment

Update on Hugh’s progress! He was very diligent at running regularly but the past few days have hindered that because of the yellow dust. Part of the problem with yellow dust is that unless you check religiously, you can get caught out and be exposed to it and then feel really sick for days.

Yellow dust is dust/dirt/sand from the deserts in China and Mongolia that mixes with pollution in China and then comes down to Korea and mixes with Korean pollution. It can be really bad in Spring and affects some people more than others. It brings on flu or cold like symptoms like a sore throat, headache, aches etc. Hugh usually gets sicker than I do. For example my throat is slightly sore but that’s it. He has been very sick and has difficulty talking because of his throat. I do wonder if his childhood where he was exposed to a lot of cigarette smoke affects how his throat handles the yellow dust now. I was hardly ever exposed to cigarette smoke as a child and grew up in the fresh countryside Australian air. But besides from the obvious problems someone might have, I’m not sure what other factors there are in how someone reacts to it. I just know it messes Hugh up a lot.

So that has been very frustrating for his exercise plan because he was been really enjoying running outside a lot. Hopefully it clears soon.

Hugh’s Vlog: Hongdae Night Life

2016/09/08 / Nic / 0 Comments

We’ve mentioned before that Hugh is a social butterfly and has many friends. He recently vlogged a night out and it gives a glimpse into the dynamic Hongdae night life. This was a Monday night!

I wasn’t feeling that well so I stayed home… we have Netflix now! Anyway in this video you can see the Korean style night life of moving from place to place all night. Restaurants, bars, street food etc.